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Column Why we need to ban zero-hours contracts

Working on a zero-hours contract means you can’t budget or plan your life – and causes people to become stuck in a cycle of poverty, writes Ciaran Garrett.

THERE IS AN ongoing debate taking place in the UK on the need to ban zero-hours contracts. A recent poll by Yougov found that 56 per cent of the British public favour these contracts being abolished and only 25 per cent are against. It’s time we started talking about banning zero-hours contracts and creating decent work here in Ireland too.

The problem with zero-hours contracts is that they do not provide workers with a set number of hours work each week. A person on one of these contracts is constantly on call from the employer waiting to get called into work. One week a worker may get 30 hours of work, the next week they might not get any hours work at all. This uncertainty means it’s next to impossible for workers on zero-hours contracts to properly plan their life and have a decent standard of living.

Take this as an example: Louise is 36, has two kids and rents a house in Galway. She works in a supermarket in the city centre but isn’t able to effectively plan for paying for food, rent and household bills because she has no idea how many hours of work she will be getting each week. To help to pay her bills, Louise has to turn to loan-sharks who lend money at high interest rates. She’s never been able to buy a family home for her family because the bank doesn’t want to lend money to someone who doesn’t have a guaranteed income. Louise would like to go to college to improve her career prospects but she can’t commit to lecture hours when she might get called into work at short notice.

This is the reality of life for many people who work on zero hours contracts. The only certainty for them is uncertainty.

Research carried out by Mandate Trade Union in 2013 found that 17 per cent of people living below the poverty line work in precarious jobs with zero-hours contract jobs. The research also found that 75 per cent of people working in these jobs report suffering from stress and find it difficult to cope financially.

As this research shows, one of the most significant ways we can build a fairer and healthier society is by improving working conditions. Having worked on a zero-hours contract myself, I know firsthand how difficult it is to plan and budget for your daily life when you don’t know when you’ll be required to work and how much you’ll be earning each week.

The use of zero-hours contracts is especially popular in the retail and hospitality sector. McDonald’s, a huge multi-national company making billions of dollars in profit each year, has over 90 per cent of its non-managerial staff in Ireland working on zero hours contracts.

The argument used by the business lobby for these contracts is that they provide businesses with flexibility. “Flexibility” in this instance is a code word for profit maximisation as workers on zero-hours contracts do not get sick pay, holiday pay or overtime.

Despite business lobby spin about these contracts being good for business, research from the Work Foundation shows an insecure workforce is likely to be less productive than a workforce on fixed-hours contracts. That’s one of the reasons why Hovis, a large bakery firm in the UK, has stopped hiring workers on zero-hours contracts. In Ireland the HSE have also stopped hiring home help workers on these contracts after successful campaigning for their abolition from the workers.

Another argument used is that zero-hours contracts benefit workers who want flexibility in the workplace. However, a recent report from the Resolution Foundation in the UK found that most workers do not turn down work when the employer calls them for a real fear of being punished by their employer. The survey found that 20 per cent of workers reported having wages docked or not being offered work for a while as punishment by the employer for turning down work.

Abolishing zero-hours contracts would help improve the lives of the many thousands of workers in Ireland currently trapped in precarious employment. It also wouldn’t cost the government any money. In fact, it would be a money-saving measure in reducing the demand for income supplements from the Department of Social Welfare and boosting consumer spending in the economy.

Banning zero hours contracts would be a strong commitment from the government that job creation in post-bailout Ireland is not just about the number of jobs created, but also about the quality of jobs. The economic model which brought our country to financial ruin and worsened inequality centered on the interests of capital. In order to foster social renewal and build a robust, sustainable economy, an economic approach which respects the rights and contributions of workers to the economy is needed and banning zero hours contracts would be a positive move in that direction.

Ciaran Garrett is the National Chairperson of Labour Youth & a Trade Union Activist. Twitter @ciaran_garrett

Read: 250,000 households have less than €15,000 a year to live on

Column: The introduction of a living wage would benefit ALL of Irish society

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79 Comments
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    Mute SeekingUniverslTruth
    Favourite SeekingUniverslTruth
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 8:41 AM

    ” People still take English classes in US high schools up to senior year”

    eh. don;t we do that here?

    113
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    Mute Owen Slattery
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 9:33 AM

    Albeit with an emphasis on shite poetry

    72
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    Mute Stephen Downey
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 10:50 AM

    Not really, by Leaving Cert you are not learning to speak and write English, you are studying the English language.
    In the US with huge diversity of cultures, English remains a barrier to some. In fact if I’m not mistaken, there are more people in the US who identify Spanish as their first language than any other language.

    Interesting article, might give some insight to those who think Irish is dead and why so many still support it.

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    Mute Paul FitzGerald
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 9:08 AM

    You never really “get” a language until you live in a country that speaks it. The grammatical nuances, the regional accents, but above all the slang.

    After 10 years learning classroom French, the first conversation I had in France started with “avez-vous du fue?” ….do I have fire? Am I on fire? I was utterly unable to figure out what was going on. (I was being asked for a light for a cigarette!)

    I think we place too much emphasis on the classroom environment, rather than just doing conversational stuff. I was fortunate enough to go to Italy for six months years ago and all I got was a few lessons before hand and was thrown into a working Italian environment. I learnt pretty quickly as I had to. My limited Italian mightn’t be grammatically perfect, but on a practical level it’s pretty good at a spoken level.

    I’m currently trying to learn Portuguese, but the area I go to in the Algarve has the Portuguese equivalent of a Kerry accent. You won’t find it in a book, you have to learn it the hard way with the locals pissing themselves laughing at your pronunciation.

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    Mute Conor Gallagher
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 8:58 AM

    Language as a part of one’s identity, that makes sense…Perhaps it properly explains why a minority of Irish people boast about knowing no Irish after 14 years of it being “rammed down their throats” but then correct a polish person who mispronounces a word when they learn a few phrases as gaeilge (many non Anglophones are multilingualists and enjoy learning a language for the sake of learning, even if it is outside the top 200 languages in the world.).

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    Mute john stewart
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 9:21 AM

    Tir gan teanga, Tir gan anam

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    Mute Chris Kubik
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 9:34 AM

    I’m native German but was always very good at English. I’ve been living in Ireland for 8 years now, married to an Irish woman. My second language has now become my first and I tend to struggle with my German these days.

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    Mute Niall O Dochartaigh
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 9:44 AM

    I can speak,Irish, English and Swedish,does this make me a Cunning Lingquist or is that just a slip of the tongue ?

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    Mute Lily Signoret
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 11:05 AM

    I’m French but speak English fluently, and have spent the last 10 years in different English-speaking countries (I’m 30). I always found English easy to learn and improve, easier to play around with than French. Speaking English has definitely helped built the person I am today. It just suits me as a language and I love writing in English. I’m ashamed to say I sometimes struggle finding my words in French… But French is such a beautiful language, the imagery can be breathtaking, and I still get moved listening to songs or readings books in my native language.

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    Mute Ciaran De Bhal
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 9:10 AM

    Many people would be better off learning their first language correctly before attempting a second.

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    Mute John O Sullivan
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 12:30 PM

    Maybe learn a 2nd language first, and then revisit your opinion.

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    Mute Ciaran De Bhal
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 1:15 PM

    Have done. Four languages in total. French, Spanish, Irish as well as English.

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    Mute Mark Sweetman
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 8:53 AM

    Ja naturlich!

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    Mute Catherine Sims
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 10:18 AM

    I have always thought I would be terrible at languages. Learning French at school was a nightmare. The teacher was either drunk or severely hung over. It wasn’t uncommon to get hit by the books she threw at the students when she wanted their attention. It’s soured me for sure. Then in her late thirties my sister decided to do a degree in German . She had no previous experience of the language and had the same teachers as I had in secondary school. I thought she was crazy but not only did she complete it she did fantastically well. I am actually thinking of trying to learn a language again now as a result. Maybe not French but Spanish or German.

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    Mute SeekingUniverslTruth
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 11:44 AM

    Sounds like the makings of a tribunal

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    Mute Michael Fagan
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 11:54 AM

    Learning a second language is easy, when your living in a country where the second language is all around you TV, radio, newspapers,public signposts, etc,
    just travel around Europe, almost everyone speaks English to visitors, and their own language among themselves,
    Businessmen say they get a great advantage in international negotiating, with side remarks in their own language
    Such a pity that the people of Ireland (in general) don’t know how to speak their own language

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    Mute Nibbler Dibbler
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 4:11 PM

    Met an elderly gentleman in Denmark suffering from dementia. In his native tongue he could not remember anything not even if I had said yes when he offered me tea or coffee. However, remembering that he could speak excellent English when I had first met him ten years earlier, I switched the conversation into English. Amazing to discover that the dementia was gone and he was completely normal when using his second language!

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    Mute John Stafford
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    Aug 3rd 2014, 3:42 PM

    Learning a language is all about repetition and trying not be lethargic. Simple

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    Mute Amy Wallis
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    Aug 6th 2014, 10:40 AM

    I don’t agree with learning a language changes you as a person, your identity. If you’re learning in the country of the language (ie a foreign country) then you most likely – hopefully! – will grow and change, but not because of the language itself, but because of the experiences you have, something which has been happening to is all our lives to make us who we are today. Those experiences of living in a different country (or even simply the experiences had in a language class in your own country) send you down a different path than not doing so would, because it’s something new and strange, and you do new and differen things, meet new and different people. I would be a completely different person today, and would think of myself in a different way had I never moved to Italy, and stayed in Ireland.

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    Mute Fatima Anwar
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    Oct 5th 2014, 2:48 PM

    English language learning classes or learn English as a second language is now easier for ESL students with the help of online integrated English course

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    Mute Konrad Bobrzecki
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    Dec 14th 2014, 10:42 AM

    Not that long time ago I’ve tried http://www.bellsenglishonline.com/ ,since I’m not a beginner I started with Intermidiate package of their process,just to see if it will give me anything.Whole course is very intuitive and enjoyable.I think Bellsenglishonline is a worthwhile addition to anything else you might be using for your English learning.

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